The Nobel judges in Stockholm awarded the prestigious prize to Irish-born William Campbell, Satoshi Omura and of Japan and Tu Youyou – the first ever Chinese medicine laureate.
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The other half goes to China’s Youyou Tu, who used traditional herbal medicine to find a new kind of antimalarial agent. Their discoveries have revolutionised the treatment of parasitic diseases and the benefits of their discovery to mankind are immeasurable.
Campbell and Omura were cited for discoveries concerning a novel therapy against infections caused by roundworm parasites, while Tu was rewarded for discoveries concerning a novel therapy against malaria. This led to the isolation of artemisinin, a new class of anti-malaria drug.
All three researchers extracted naturally occurring chemicals that became crucial drugs against diseases that affect hundreds of millions around the world. “They not only kill these parasites but they stop these infections from spreading”.
The Nobel Prize for physiology or medicine has been split two ways for groundbreaking work on parasitic diseases, the BBC reports.
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On Tuesday, the prize for physics will be awarded, followed by chemistry on Wednesday, then literature, and then the main event in Oslo on Friday, when the successor to Malala Yousafzai as Nobel Peace Prize laureate will be named.
